


The Dark Knights

by jumpingjaxx13



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Batjokes Gotham Exchange, Emotions are Complicated, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Mostly fluff right now, cuties being cute, for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpingjaxx13/pseuds/jumpingjaxx13
Summary: Prompt #4:  Established Relationship Jeremiah and Bruce. Jeremiah is still the villain and Bruce is still the hero but they have their moments and those moments mean everything to them.Jeremiah and Bruce's relationship summarized by three nights.





	The Dark Knights

**Author's Note:**

> This is my gift for the Batjokes Gotham Exchange! It's a little late, but I hope it was worth it!

Killing Jerome Valeska the second time around felt too easy. The man had clawed and ripped his way out of hell, gasping through waves of shed blood to feed his madness, his entire being a reflection of everything perverse and rotten in the human soul. To be felled by a proverbial “fall from grace” was insulting.

 

The GCPD labelled it a suicide. If nothing else, Jerome took the reigns of his own demise; the ringleader’s final performance, ending a legacy of chaos with a crash. In the end, his surviving opponents circled around the crater, Gotham’s greatest menace broken at the epicenter. 

 

Despite his best efforts at indifference, Bruce could tell that Jeremiah took it hard. His eyes appeared dull, gaping with the empty ache of an indescribable loss that he knew all too well. Words failed to describe neither grief nor love, both emotions taking form as more than just a prickle behind the eyes or a tightness in the chest. One couldn’t decide who he loved, nor how he grieved for those he loved. At some point in their lives, the twins must have been brothers beyond blood, and the heart had a nasty habit of holding onto the memories that justified it's feelings, no matter how select and few they were. Bruce, for instance, tended to gloss over the handful of arguments that he’d shared with his parents before their deaths in favor of harboring the love and positive sentiments. It was easier that way. There were so many good memories to lean back on. 

 

Jeremiah, with his dearth of affectionate moments with his brother, must be struggling more than he’d admit. Nothing positive could fill the emptiness that inevitably created a vacuum in the soul of any sane man upon witnessing death. It was enough to drive anyone mad, even if only temporarily. Hell, Bruce himself had felt the invasive tendrils of madness finger his soul when he’d tried to light his own hand aflame and he had been in a comparably better state with all of the support he didn’t know he needed. 

 

Save for Ecco, Jeremiah had nobody. He bore this alone. 

 

Perhaps it was for that reason that Bruce approached him, hand outstretched and empathy on his tongue. He knew better than to break out the typical sentimental niceties--  _ nobody _ wanted to hear that you were  _ sorry for their loss _ . Especially when you knew that the world was better off because of it. The line between genuine support and these aforementioned niceties was thin, but Bruce knew from experience how to toe it carefully. 

 

“Mr. Valeska,” he greeted, continuing forward as the retreating man stopped in his tracks and turned to face him. Though he offered a weak smile that was little more than a twitch of the lips, Bruce could see the weight of the world on his shoulders. There would be countless questions to answer, and he doubted that he held all of them. Nevertheless, Gotham would look at him-- his genius, his introversion, his sadness-- and see nothing but the tainted ghost of his brother and all of the secrets he must have harbored. 

 

“Ah… Bruce,” Jeremiah replied, adjusting his glasses and running an anxious hand through otherwise perfectly set hair. His face was flushed from the emotions that plagued him and his eyes wouldn’t settle on any one thing, accenting his anxiety. In the span of 24 hours, he’d been outed from his cave and brought into the limelight, now known only as the brother of Gotham’s maniacal plague. Bruce could see the toll it took on him. “I was just on my way back. It’s been an  _ eventful _ evening.”

 

And wasn’t that just the truth? An understatement if anything, but that made it no less true. Jeremiah looked as if he just wanted to run from it all-- a sentiment Bruce could understand. Being in the public eye isn't for everyone. Oftentimes, he wondered whether he was fit for it himself, but being a Wayne didn’t lend him much of a choice in the matter.

 

“I know. You must be tired,” he mused sympathetically, trying to meet Jeremiah’s eyes. Their gazes connected for a fraction of a second before the latter averted his own, but it was enough to induce little sparks in Bruce’s gut. It was no secret that he found the man attractive; he’d had more than enough opportunity to explore and become comfortable with his sexuality during his more  _ promiscuous  _ phase, and to claim otherwise would only amount to lying to himself. Nevertheless, even if his heart pleaded otherwise, now was not the time to indulge this sapio-physical attraction. 

 

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you for long. I just wanted to discuss something with you. A proposal, if you like.” This seemed to pique Jeremiah’s interest, judging by how he looked back up, so Bruce continued. “It’s about your generators. I-- well,  _ Wayne Enterprises _ \-- would love to fund your work. I know you can do a lot of good for this city, Jeremiah, and I’d hate to see  _ anything  _ holding you back.”

 

Jeremiah paused, considering the idea as if it were the first time he’d ever been approached with such an offer. In reality, he knew it couldn’t be. No matter how brilliant, someone couldn’t come up with the money to build and maintain an elaborate, underground, fortalized labyrinth  _ and _ acquire the necessary tools to build such impressive machines by digging through couch cushions. 

 

“...Thank you,” he replied eventually, the preceding silence echoing in the space between them. It broke just a few beats too late to be comfortable, the tension in the air rising to almost suffocating levels as the two men stared each other down. For a moment, Bruce thought that it may shatter before Jeremiah turned on his heel, bottling it up and leaving the questions suspended without relief. Bruce stayed in place, watching the surviving Valeska make his escape just  _ knowing _ that there was something under his skin; something left unsaid. 

 

He should have let it go. 

 

Jeremiah needed time alone. The day had been traumatic. He needed to let him go.

 

Everything would be better off if he let Jeremiah Valeska return home to sort his feelings out without being bothered by the young billionaire. That was undeniable. 

 

Those were the kinds of thoughts the aforementioned young billionaire promptly ignored as he started after him. 

 

“ _ Mr. Valeska, wait!” _

 

The genius did not stop like last time, but his pace slowed enough that Bruce could catch up with only a slight jog. Once by his side, the young heir fell easily into step alongside Jeremiah, their movements so right and synchronized that their steps created a quiet metronome in the streets. Like this, it was easy to wonder they were cut from the same cloth or were two sides of the same coin. Bruce preferred to think of them both as magnets, a vice grip on the opposite pole that slowly pulls them together. It took long enough for them to meet, but now that they had, it would take a seven nation army to tear them apart.

 

They walked in silence down the streets of Gotham until the shouts of the night faded to whispers along the edge of the city. Only then did Jeremiah turn to look at him, an unfamiliar, guarded expression in his eyes. 

“Is there something you want?” he questioned, eventually slowing to a stop as the whispering city fell to silence, “Or are you intending to follow me home?”

 

Bruce blinked owlishly. “What..?”

 

“I have been waiting for you to speak, but we have traversed half of the city and you have yet to say a word. You did tell me to wait, didn’t you?”

 

“I did,” Bruce confessed, nodding faintly. “But you didn’t do a very good job of  _ waiting. _ It doesn’t usually involve walking across the city to wait.”

 

A shy, barely-there smile graced Jeremiah’s lips. “I guess it doesn’t. My mistake.” 

 

“I think I could find it in myself to forgive you,” he teased, meeting that shy curve of lips with a broader one of his own, encouraging its counterpart to brighten. “You’re right, though. I was coming with you because I… I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

 

Jeremiah paused, that smile fading into a slight frown. “Your concern is appreciated, but I am not  _ grieving _ , Bruce.”

 

“He was your brother--”

 

“He was a  _ menace _ ,” Jeremiah interjected, but Bruce could see the conflict in his eyes. “Nothing more, nothing less. I have lost  _ nothing _ . I miss  _ nothing. _ ”

 

Taken aback, Bruce frowned, brow pinching in disbelief.  _ Denial. _ It was a dangerous state to be in, often lending a hand to bouts of anxiety and self destruction when reality and fantasy didn’t line up. Shaking his head, he placed a hand on the older man’s shoulder. 

 

“I don’t believe that,” he stated. “He was your brother. You had to have had some little moments worth clinging on to, and no matter how few, you are going to miss that. Trust me, I know.”

 

“No,” Jeremiah replied. “That’s not true. Any good memories would come from when we were children, and that was so long ago… Besides, those little moments don’t matter anymore.”

 

“No. Those little moments are the only things that matter.” Slowly, Bruce began to run his hand down Jeremiah’s arm, pausing right above his wrist. “When you’ve gone through hell and back, do you think you’re going to remember the awful things people have done? The bits and pieces of the world filled with hate? Or are you going to want to remember those little flashes of joy you experienced on your journey there?”

 

Silence reigned for a few moments, the two of them stuck in the limbo between empathetic intimacy and philosophical rejection. He wanted so badly to know what was going on in Jeremiah’s mind-- he could see the gears turning, whirring uncontrollably as if this mourning were a foreign concept to him entirely. Bruce couldn’t help but wonder if he had grieved for his mother, or if he had bottled it away and let her die in his heart as well as in life. 

 

“...It doesn’t make sense,” Jeremiah stated eventually, a broken tension in his voice that hadn’t been present before. Taking a chance, the young heir let his hand wrap cautiously around the other. When the grip wasn’t pulled away, he took it as a sign of acceptance.

 

“Grief doesn’t make sense,” he agreed, rubbing gentle circles into his hand to try and soothe the nerves. “It’s not supposed to. And I’m not going to think any differently of you if you mourn your brother. It’s natural, and I want to be there for you.”

 

Jeremiah’s hand turned in his grip and, for a heartbreaking second, he feared that he was going to break away. When he felt cool fingers interlock with his own, however, he felt his heart melt. 

 

“...For all of the little moments?” he questioned, voice barely above a whisper. 

 

A gentle smile sloping his lips, Bruce gave his hand a squeeze. “For every last one.”

 

Neither of them knew who actually made the first move, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. The quiet edge of the city lit up with silent joy as gaps between them closed, lips ghosting one another in a test of the proverbial waters. Jeremiah returned the tight grip, the two of them holding the other insistently in place as phantoms evolved into a firm, solid kiss. Bruce felt as if he were floating. He’d participated in his fair share of kisses, but even the most passionate of drunken encounters could not compare to the butterflies in his stomach as the world faded into their immediate surroundings. 

  
  


They broke away breathless, identical blushes burning equally pale cheeks and shy smile gracing tingling lips. The rest of the night faded into a set of nervous laughs and exchanged numbers, a soft giddiness encompassing them as they parted ways.

 

Even as he made his way home and ignored Alfred’s reprimands for running off, Bruce’s smile never even considered fading.

 

Little did he know that this was the first and last time he would kiss Jeremiah Valeska as he had been. Perhaps if he had, then he would have cherished this little moment all the more. 


End file.
